The last day of the horse on the streets of Cork.

In 1967, while still a student in UCC, I got a call from Mr. Martin Murphy, CIE’s Area Manager for Munster, to call to his office in that lovely limestone building on Albert Quay alongside the City Hall. It transpired that the following Friday was to be the last day that the CIE horse and dray would be seen delivering freight on the streets of Cork and he wanted some photographs to record the event. I still don’t know if it was an official CIE job or if Martin was struck with nostalgia for the era about to end.

 

The horses were stabled on the Lower Road alongside the railway station and I duly presented myself there at 8am on Friday. The place was enveloped in gloom: after all, this was the end of the road not just for the horses but for the men who drove them and for those that cared for them. To my shame I can’t remember any of the names of those I met that morning but I remember well their pride in the horses, the carefully polished tackle hanging on the wall and their dexterity in manoeuvring the heavy, flat carts, or drays, used to carry the freight.

It was like a funeral procession. Everywhere we went that morning there were sad handshakes and kind words of condolences for the driver at every stop.

It was decided I would head off uptown on one of the drays to photograph the scenes that would enfold for the last time. It was like a funeral procession. Everywhere we went that morning there were sad handshakes and kind words of condolences for the driver at every stop. He put a brave face on it as he skilfully manoeuvred both horse and dray around the streets but he must have felt the pain of knowing that his skills and years of expertise were now considered superfluous to the needs of the state.

 

We finally got back to the yard on the lower Road, the horse was untackled and led away and the driver and a few of his mates headed for the pub. I hung around for a few photographs of the stable hand and the horses, and permit me to give a context to my final words with him over a cup of tea in the tack room.

 This man had his neck swathed in towels and when these were gingerly removed they exposed a large rat gripping fiercely and rigidly to the misfortunate man’s neck.

Many years earlier, when I was about 10 years of age, I cut my hand badly on barbed wire and was brought to the South Infirmary to be stitched. While I waited in the hospital hallway the front door burst open and two men staggered in supporting a third man between them. This man had his neck swathed in towels and when these were gingerly removed they exposed a large rat gripping fiercely and rigidly to the misfortunate man’s neck.

 

I never got over the shock of that scene and to this day the sight, the mention or the very suggestion of a rat is enough to turn my blood to water: I simply can’t function.

 

Well, to get back to the tack-room: over the course of the cup of tea, as we chatted about the horses and life in the stables, I casually asked, “Do you mind my asking, why do all of the men in the yard have the bottom of their pants tied tightly with twine?”

 

“Oh, this place is crawling with rats and that’s just to prevent one running up the leg of their pants.”

 

“Oh, Jesus!!!”